30 of late Rolling Stones fan's relatives will wear "She's a Rainbow" shirts at Philadelphia Lung Force Walk
Lauren Opalisky to participate in Lung Force Walk at Philadelphia Zoo in memory of mother, Tina
Lauren Opalisky to participate in Lung Force Walk at Philadelphia Zoo in memory of mother, Tina
Lauren Opalisky to participate in Lung Force Walk at Philadelphia Zoo in memory of mother, Tina
The Philadelphia Zoo is a very special place for Lauren Opalisky and her family. This trip is a bittersweet return.
"My mom passed away early this year," Opalisky said. "And the zoo always meant so much to my family. And we would come here all the time. And so I just thought it was a perfect fit."
A perfect fit to honor her mother, who died of lung cancer in January. This year's American Lung Association Lung Force Walk will take place at the Philadelphia Zoo on Saturday, May 10. And Lauren, along with a team of 30 family members, will be walking in memory of Tina Opalisky.
"My mom had a long medical history; she had heart surgery, and so she would always get yearly check-ups, and they found out she had thyroid cancer," Lauren said. "And then one year, they just found that there was something on her lungs."
A routine yearly exam in 2021 for another medical condition detected Stage 3 lung cancer. The Opalisky family's lives were forever changed.
"Without that, she probably wouldn't have found out, wouldn't have started taking chemo, and who knows how much time she would have had," Lauren said.
Tina Opalisky, center
The Opalisky Family
Tina survived her battle with lung cancer for four years...indefatigable until the very end.
"She was the coolest lady ever, she was up and at 'em every day doing something she loved," Lauren said.
Lauren and her family are finding solace in the American Lung Association in Pennsylvania and its Lung Force Walk that will spiral around the zoo.
"We're expecting 750 people, maybe more, so we're excited. Definitely having it here at the zoo is a very great way to get people more engaged and interested in the cause," said Caroline Hutchinson, executive director of the American Lung Association in Pennsylvania.
"I'm only 25 years old, so not having my Mom is really hard. And so at least I can talk to other people that are in similar situations," Lauren said.
The Opalisky family will be sporting their team's T-shirts during the walk – a team name lovingly inspired by Tina's love of The Rolling Stones.
The Opalisky family will be wearing these T-shirts commemorating Tina Opalisky, a huge fan of The Rolling Stones. The shirts say "T's a Rainbow," a reference to the song "She's a Rainbow."
Lauren Opalisky
"We based it off The Rolling Stones' song 'She's a Rainbow,' it's 'T's a rainbow,'" Opalisky said. "That's our song, because she was like a rainbow."
Learn more about the Lung Force Walk and get involved at Lungforce.org/CBSPhiladelphia.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Some workers are job hopping for fertility benefits. Employers are trying to keep up.
Laura Muller started looking for a new job in 2023 to give her dream of starting a family a fighting chance. A 38-year-old licensed veterinary technician, Muller loved the field but was willing to take just about any job that would cover in vitro fertilization, or IVF, treatment, be it Starbucks or Tractor Supply. In job interviews, she said, one of the first questions she'd ask was: 'Tell me more about your fertility coverage.' She landed a job as an emergency veterinary nurse, and after four rounds of intrauterine insemination − a fertility treatment that places prepared sperm in a uterus − and four egg retrievals, Muller's first embryo transfer was a success. She's expecting a boy in June. 'I'm just thankful we were able to get here,' said Muller, who lives in Philadelphia. 'I feel like it was a Herculean effort, but it was definitely worth it.' As baby boomers retire and a new generation of workers takes center stage in the workforce, employers are reconsidering what it means to care for their employees' well-being. Fertility care coverage and child care benefits are among the most expensive for companies. But they're also some of the most sought-after perks for millennials, who represent the largest segment of the U.S. workforce, and employers are noticing. Maven Clinic, a virtual clinic for women's and family health, recently surveyed more than 1,500 human resources leaders and nearly 4,000 full-time employees and found 69% of employees have taken, considered or might take a new job for better reproductive and family benefits. The same percentage of employers plan to increase their family health benefits vendors in the next two to three years. Gallagher, an insurance and employee benefits consulting company, produced similar findings in its own report, when 63% of the nearly 700 employees surveyed said they would change jobs for better benefits. Among millennials, nearly 40% identify as parents and prioritize family-forming benefits, child care and education support. Overall employee interest in pregnancy and fertility resources jumped from 5% in 2022 to 13% in 2024. It's not just women who need access to fertility care, Maven Clinic CEO Kate Ryder said. Her company started providing at-home sperm analysis kits last year, and she said they've been hugely popular. The definition of family, and how adults are starting ones of their own, is evolving, said Kathleen Schulz, Gallagher's global innovation leader for organizational well-being. There are single parents, blended families, adopted children and surrogates who need care, too. 'The way that we think about family now, it's different than the way that we thought about it 20 years ago,' Schulz said. 'And employers kind of need to lean into that in a more inclusive way. The struggle is that the way that an employer may want to define family may be a little bit different than the regulatory bodies that are defining families." More: 'You never catch up.' How caring for their family widens the pay gap for women Barbara Collura, CEO and president of the infertility advocacy organization Resolve, said the organization 'absolutely' sees people switching companies, moving states or taking on a second job to access fertility benefits. 'If you are struggling to build your family, and you have been told that the only option for you to have a chance at having children is a medical treatment that is going to be, out of pocket, $15,000 to $25,000 for one cycle ... that's a tall order,' Collura said. Mercer, another consulting firm, also found more employers are covering IVF and other family benefits like paid parental leave. Mercer's survey of 630 U.S. organizations found 62% now offer bereavement leave for pregnancy loss, and 58% offer bereavement leave for miscarriage. Taylor Capuano, who co-founded Cakes Body, a bra alternative brand, with her sister, said offering women- and family-focused benefits is a top priority for their company, which has grown in the past year from 10 to 30 employees. A video of the sisters announcing full child care coverage for employees with kids too young to go to school went viral in May. Women who responded to the video were emotional, Capuano said. It proved to her that most women don't feel seen or heard by their employers. She knows she didn't when she worked in corporate America. 'I just remember looking at my expenses, being like: 'Wait a minute. I don't think I'm going to be able to make sense of staying in the workforce.' Because I was pretty much breaking even on working versus paying for my child care," she said. More: 'No mute button for a toddler': How thousands of parents juggle remote work and parenting 'It was always a goal of mine to be able to create an environment where I, personally, could afford to live and be a mom. But I never really expected to have employees.' Capuano said she and her sister are still trying to figure out best practices for creating conducive working environments for parents. They encourage flexible work hours so parents can schedule work around family responsibilities. They also offer four months of full-paid parental leave, which is a rarity. And Cakes Body's new child care stipend policy covers up to $3,000 a month, which is enough to support two kids' child care in most states. Cakes Body doesn't have fertility care coverage yet, Capuano said, but she and her sister 'want to do more' for women and parents. Fertility treatment coverage is becoming increasingly common: IVF was covered by 47% of large employers with at least 500 employees in 2024, up two percentage points from the year before, according to a Mercer survey of more than 2,000 employers. Of the largest companies – those with 20,000 or more employees – 70% cover IVF. 'Some of it has to do with attraction and retention,' said Lindsay Bower, senior principal in Mercer's health and benefits team. 'Especially in industries that are really competing for talent.' The most common reason why employers don't provide fertility care coverage, according to Gallagher's report, is cost. Maven Clinic's report also found the financial burden of fertility care has reached a breaking point. Employers who already provide fertility care coverage are concerned about rising costs, and 28% of employees pursuing fertility treatment incurred debt to cover the cost. Christina Parker understands the eye-popping cost of IVF all too well. After an endocervical cancer diagnosis in 2021 resulted in the loss of her fallopian tubes, Parker knew the more affordable intrauterine insemination would no longer be an option; she and her wife would have to pay up for IVF so they could carry a child. Parker worried out-of-pocket costs would be out of her price range. The fertility treatment – in which eggs are collected from an ovary, fertilized by sperm in a lab and then transferred to a uterus – can run more than $10,000 a cycle, and some patients require multiple cycles for a successful birth. After some digging, she learned pharmacy chain Walgreens offers fertility coverage, and there was a location 10 minutes from her home in Asheville, North Carolina, that was hiring. The pharmacy technician role paid $6 less an hour than her hotel job and Parker had no industry experience, but she decided to give it a shot. It worked. Parker was hired and started IVF in 2022, and after two unsuccessful rounds, she gave birth to a son in May 2023. Parker, 29, estimates she and her wife spent about $7,000 out of pocket for three IVF cycles, including preimplantation genetic testing. An estimated $75,000 was covered by insurance. Now, she said, she looks to see if potential employers have fertility benefits or maternity care before applying. 'If you don't, chances are I'm not going to.' Madeline Mitchell's role covering women and the caregiving economy at USA TODAY is supported by a partnership with Pivotal Ventures and Journalism Funding Partners. Funders do not provide editorial input. Reach Madeline at memitchell@ and @maddiemitch_ on X. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Fertility, child care benefits top of mind for millennial workers Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
6 hours ago
- Yahoo
Twins mark near-perfect attendance record through 12 years of school
The Brief A Chester County high school senior achieved impressive perfect attendance from kindergarten through 12th grade. His twin sister only missed one day of school. Both are attending the same college next year to study pre-med. DOWNINGTOWN, Pa. - Chester County twins have missed just two days of school over the course of the 12 years they have been students. And, the remarkable feat apparently runs in their family. The backstory Bishop Shanahan High School Senior Leah Madanat has plenty to celebrate on graduation day Friday. Not just getting high school diploma but another accomplishment. She has only missed one day of school since kindergarten. "I must have missed one day during 4th grade. Maybe for like a doctor's appointment," said Leah. But her twin brother Elan can boast of a bigger accomplishment. He's never missed a single day of school. Ever. Not one sick day in more than 2,340 days off school in 13 years. It is no surprise he's the class president. "In the middle of high school, it was something like it's going pretty well and said, 'I haven't missed days I might as well keep going for it,'" said Elan. You could say school discipline runs in the family. Dad Tal is a Coatesville High School graduate who also had perfect attendance through school. What they're saying "To see my kids strive for that and to want to come to school and to have Bishop Shanahan provide a place they are comfortable and they want to come learn," said Tal Madanat. "This is the first time I've ever experienced that. To think of all the things we've gone through over the years. Think of the COVID years…they made it through the COVID years every day, so it's very impressive," added Bishop Shanahan Principal Dr. Robert Moran. What's next Although they spent all kindergarten through high school together this isn't the end for Leah and Elan. Their remarkable attendance will continue at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh where they have both enrolled in the pre-med program. But their bond goes well beyond the classroom. No sibling rivalry here. "It truly feels like a blessing, honestly, having someone there especially family that know and you can always rely on and will always help you, pick you up," said Leah. "It's like having a built-in best friend, you know? She is someone, no matter what I am going through, I can just talk to. I can laugh with, have a serious conversation," added Elan. Big picture view For mom, their kids quiet determination and discipline is what sets them apart. Now she says it's time for them to fly. "All the best. All the good things. What every they dream for it, I wish them all the best," said their mother, Lamia Madanat. Before heading off to college, the twins say they hope to spend a little time at the beach this summer.
Yahoo
6 hours ago
- Yahoo
Beaver County teen with terminal cancer accomplishes goal of graduating high school
An emotional graduation ceremony was held at Beaver High School Friday night. A determined student fulfilled his dream of walking across the stage. Elias Kazas turned a shocking cancer diagnosis into a powerful journey. Channel 11 first introduced Elias last month. When he was 12 years old, he was diagnosed with a rare cancer on his brain stem. Doctors only gave him 12 to 16 months to live. After more than 1,000 doses of chemotherapy, the tumor is still there and is body is unable to continue treatment. Despite this, Kazas was determined to get back on the basketball court and walk the graduation stage with his friends. 'I fought so hard to stay. At this point, 6 years ago, I was here for my older brother Peter and was hoping I would make it to the next grade and to be here today and celebrate with my friends who have been there since day 1, my family, it's an honor,' Kazas said. He said he is planning to enjoy each day and attend barber school in the fall. Download the FREE WPXI News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Channel 11 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch WPXI NOW
